Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is reportedly pursuing a “nuclear option” rule change to make it easier to push through a flood of President Donald Trump’s right-wing judges.

Under the new rules, nominees for lifetime appointments on lower courts would only require a simple majority of votes rather than the current 67. Critics condemned the move as “hijacking” the federal judiciary and pointed out that even if Democrats regain control of the Senate and White House in the next election, they may not have any more spots to fill post-2020. Continue reading →

“It was insane, people were getting shoved into walls. It was unsustainable. It was violent.”

Capitol Police became physically aggressive toward journalists who were trying to speak with senators at the Russell Senate Office Building on Thursday afternoon, according to a Roll Call report. (Photo: @pkcapitol/Twitter)

Press freedom advocates and journalists described a Friday report of Capitol Police manhandling and shoving reporters in the Russell Senate Office Building as “bizarre” and “disturbing,” with some calling the altercation an incident far more likely to take place in a totalitarian regime than in a democracy.

As Roll Call reported Friday, Capitol Police pushed and “slammed into” reporters on Thursday afternoon around the time that senators were voting on the spending bill. The police attempted to prevent reporters from speaking to lawmakers—a practice that is common in the Senate Capitol basement, where the incident took place. Continue reading →

“Two out of three sexual assaults are never reported. Might have something to do with the fact that for every 1,000 rapes, 994 perpetrators walk free.”

Women and men shared their reasons for not reporting their sexual assaults after President Donald Trump attacked Christine Blasey Ford on Friday. (Photo: NARAL)

Immediately following President Donald Trump’s tweet attacking Dr. Christine Blasey Ford for not reporting her alleged sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when it happened more than three decades ago, women and men alike expressed outrage and shared the facts about why rape and sexual abuse are some of the world’s most under-reported crimes.

The hashtag #WhyIDidntReport took off almost instantly, with survivors documenting their experiences of having their allegations dismissed or ignored, facing systems in which they would have to prove the wrong-doing of their far more powerful assailants, and being shamed by their communities after confiding in others about their attacks. Continue reading →

“Release documents from Judge Kavanaugh’s time in the White House in the same manner as was done for all previous Supreme Court nominees. The truth should not be hidden from the Senate or the American people.”

Then-President George W. Bush looks on as Justice Anthony Kennedy swears in Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on June 1, 2006. (Photo: Eric Draper/White House)

Three Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee claimed Thursday that documents suggest “wildly unpopular” U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh lied to lawmakers about his role in the George W. Bush administration’s torture program during his 2006 confirmation hearing to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“Torture was illegal and immoral after 9/11, and it still is now,” warn critics. And Gina Haspel “should never be allowed to work for the American people again.”

Gina Haspel, who was in charge of a black site in Thailand where torture occurred and ordered the destruction of CIA tapes of the human rights violations, has been nominated to become director of the spy agency. (Photo: CIA / with overlay)

In what critics are calling a bald attempt to help Trump’s controversial pick to lead the CIA get through a very difficult confirmation process, the CIA on Friday released a previously classifed memo in which Gina Haspel was “cleared” of any wrongdoing when she destroyed more than 90 videotapes of agency operatives torturing human beings.

According to the Associated Press, which first reported the story, the CIA on Friday “gave lawmakers a declassified memo Friday showing [Haspel] was cleared years ago of wrongdoing in the destruction of videotapes showing terror suspects being waterboarded after 9/11.” Continue reading →

New report finds agents chase border crossers into Southwest desert, where they often become lost, are left to die, or disappear altogether

In 1994, Border Patrol adopted a strategy known as Prevention Through Deterrence, which sought to control the region by increasing the risk of coming into the country without documents. (Photo: Texas Military Department/flickr/cc)

The U.S. Border Patrol has used the south-western desert to set up the death and disappearances of tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants, according to a new report by the Arizona-based advocacy groups No More Deaths/No Más Muertes and La Coalición de Derechos Humanos.